Lipogram

Lipogram (Gr. leipō, 'I leave out,' and gramma, 'a letter') is a species of verse charac- terised by the exclusion of a certain letter, either vowel or consonant. The earliest known author of lipogrammatic verse was the Greek poet Lasus (born 538 B.C.); and it is recorded of one Tryphiodorus, a Greco-Egyptian writer of the same period, that he composed an Odyssey in 24 books, from each of which, in succession, one of the letters of the Greek alphabet was excluded. Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius, a Christian monk of the 6th century, performed a similar feat in Latin. In modern times the Spaniards have been most addicted to this laborious frivolity. Lope de Vega wrote five novels, from each of which one of the vowels is excluded; and several French poets have also practised the trick. See Henry B. Wheatley's book on Anagrams (1862).